Good morning, my friends, and welcome once again to another Tuesday Afternoon Tea! I want to start off by letting you know that my post is more of a Tuesday Morning Coffee post. I have a very full and busy day today, and I'm not sure that taking time for tea is in the cards. But, since I didn't want to delay our post, once again, I'm simply altering it a little. So whether you're drinking coffee, or tea, or maybe a lovely warm winter cider, I welcome you!
Today our topics of conversation are
Cozy Homes * Warming Spices * The Movies and Music of Christmas
So let's begin, shall we?
❊ COZY HOMES
One of my favorite days of the week is Friday. Even as a stay-at-home wife and mother, my days are filled with needful tasks, which is all well and good, I'm happy to have a family to keep a well organized and tidy home for. But as with any "job", it is nice to take some time off, which may seem harder to come by as a homekeeper. However, with a little intentional thought and planning, it's certainly not out of the question. I've mentioned before about a lovely ritual I observe every Friday,
Blessing The Weekend.
Among the things I do on this day is changing the sheets on my bed (pictured right). You can see by this picture that when I say red and green are my favorite colors year round, I mean that, honestly! I have three sets of sheets that I rotate on a schedule, Light Green, Red and Dark Green. I bought extra pillow cases for each set so that I can mix and match them as you can see in this picture. The set of red sheets is used twice a month, every other week, and then the light green and dark green on the other weeks. I love all of them, and they each lend a bit of a different mood to the room. I have a lovely down mattress topper on my bed which makes it so soft and inviting, and in this season an extra blanket for warmth. I also have several throw blankets in deep greens and a bright red, for those times when I might want to take a quick nap without messing the bed up too much. We keep our apartment fairly cool, as a I prefer to wear warm clothing and cover up for added warmth. It helps to keep our heating cost down, and it doesn't dry our skin out as much. In fact, unless the temperature dips into the 20's or below, I keep my bedroom window cracked year round. For me there is just nothing better than a crisp, cool room and to burrow down deep under a warm blanket! So cozy!
Another thing I like to do when making the bed is spritzing it with a homemade linen spray. If you follow that link you'll find ideas for several lovely blends, but the blend I've been using for awhile now is a sugar cookie scent that I just love! A lot of people prefer lavender for its calming properties, but I've never been a big fan. I much prefer the muskier scents of vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and the like. The sugar cookie blend I'm currently used is pre-mixed, so once I run out of it I plan to find a recipe for a similar blend that I can mix myself in larger quantities.
❊ WARMING SPICESAnother way that I like to keep my home cozy is with simmer pots! I typically keep on going year round, but especially in autumn and winter! I had a lovely brew on the burner yesterday that I really enjoyed,
❊ CINNAMON PINE AND PEPPERMINT 2 peppermint sticks (make sure it has peppermint oil in the ingredient list)
2 sprigs of pine
2 cinnamon sticks
One little trick I've found adds a lot of fragrance to your simmer pots, especially during Christmas, is to use apple juice, cider or orange juice as your base instead of water. Just be sure, of course, to keep an eye on the level so that you don't end up with a burned up sticky mess. I know a thing or two about that! :)
❊ THE MUSIC AND MOVIES OF CHRISTMAS
And finally, I'd like to introduce you to a few of my favorite classic Christmas movies! I know that the availability of Christmas themed movies is almost endless, and it just seems to grow every year! But you may not be familiar with these gems.
This movie is one of my absolute favorites and it deserves, and will receive, an individual post all of its own. If you've never seen it, you owe it to yourself to rent it and possibly add it to your seasonal movie collection.
I just adore Barbara Stanwyk, some of you might remember her from her
Big Valley days. But some of her earlier works are simply charming, and Christmas in Connecticut is, in my opinion, the absolute best, not to mention the beautiful setting! I don't want to give too much away in this post, because as I said, I'll be sharing more about it in later this week. But if I ever had a dream house, it is definitely the one depicted in this movie.
And that brings us to another timeless classic that I love,
It Happened on 5th Avenue. As with Christmas in Connecticut, this movie deserves its own post, so hopefully I'll be able to find the time to share more about both of these wondeful movies. In the mean time, if you're interested in learning more about them they are both easy enought to google. But if you're looking for a few heartwarming movies that both young and old will like, you can't go wrong with either of these selections.
As for the music of Christmas, well, that topic might be better suited if this were an entirely Christmas themed blog, because I love Christmas music so much I could probably write a post almost daily about a different song. I do have a few more post on the topic coming up, and I've already shared one with you
last week. You'll also find all of my favorites if you listen to my
Christmas Playlist, and there are even more offerings, along with some lovely vintage images to help set a cozy mood that I shared with you in
this post. You're sure to find a few that you'll love!
And that brings us to the close of another tea time, although in this case, without the customary tea and treat! I do hope you've enjoyed your time here, that you'll try out that lovely simmer pot blend and give one of the movies a try, I just know you'll love them both! I'll be sharing more about both movies as well as more of my favorite holiday songs in the days ahead, so be on the look out for those, if you're interested!
Be sure to leave a comment or link to your own post for your chance to be entered in a drawing for a
COZY WINTER WELLNESS KIT which I'll send out mid-January. You'll find all the details
here.
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